DETROIT—What began 19 days earlier with an impromptu speech in the visiting dugout at Cincinnati ended Sunday night with the San Francisco Giants spraying champagne in the visiting clubhouse in Detroit.

In between, there was an unprecedented comeback in the NL Division Series, another comeback in the NL Championship Series and their first seven-game winning streak of the season. All culminated, of course, by their second World Series championship in three years. All spurred, of course, by pitching, pitching and more pitching.

“Holy (expletive)!” shouted reliever Jeremy Affeldt at a couple of teammates on the way from the dugout to the clubhouse party. “We just won another one!”

The clinching 4-3 victory over the Detroit Tigers took 10 innings and required the Giants to actually come from behind for the first time in 56 innings, the second-longest a team has gone without trailing in postseason history. Marco Scutaro—who else?—plated the winning with a two-out single off Phil Coke that scored Ryan Theriot.

Righthander Sergio Romo then struck out the side to secure the title. The final pitch, fittingly, was a fastball right over the plate that froze Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera. The Tigers entered the World Series as favorites because of the thump supplied by Cabrera and Prince Fielder, but Giants pitchers ruled the sweep and the postseason.

“Look in my eyes. Now! I want one more day with you,” he implored shortly before that game.

After those first two losses to the Cincinnati Reds, the Giants went through the playoffs with a 2.36 ERA and pitched four shutouts, equaling the most by any team since the wild card was introduced. They won six consecutive elimination games, including four on the road.

“Playing the two series before this one really prepared us for this,” general manager Brian Sabean said. “They kicked it up a notch.”

If this seemed like the Giants’ 2010 championship run all over again, well, it pretty much was on the pitching side.

“It’s close with how these pitchers are throwing, the quality starts, the bullpen,” manager Bruce Bochy said.

Added Sabean: “That’s our team going back to even before 2010.”

The arms aren’t going anywhere, either. All five members of the rotation and, yes, that includes Tim Lincecum, are under contract for 2013 (Lincecum, Barry Zito and Matt Cain for at least $20 million). Romo, who saved the final three games of the World Series, will be back and his predecessor, Brian Wilson, expects to be ready by spring training after missing the 2012 season because of Tommy John surgery.

The way their arms have dominated in the Giants’ past two postseason appearances, you wonder what would have happened last year when Posey wrecked his ankle in late May and the Giants fell four games short of the playoffs. Given their ways in October, you don’t have to wonder that the Giants have become the first team since the late-1990s New York Yankees to figure out how to win in the unpredictable postseason.

“We’ve been able to pitch and play defense and get timely hitting,” Sabean said. “We’re built that way because of our ballpark and the division. We play a lot of close games and that prepares you for what you have to face in the postseason.”

Sabean, the game’s longest-tenured GM, has assembled a club that has achieved almost everything but the national due it deserves. They say they can live with that, for now.

“It doesn’t really bother me that we don’t get the credit,” Giants president/CEO Larry Baer said. “Sometimes under the radar is good, right?”

Indeed, in many ways. But as World Series champions again, the Giants should not have to worry about flying under anyone’s radar for a while.